Word: neutrino
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Physicists probing within the atom toward the ultimate constitution of matter already had their hands full with positive and negative electrons, neutrons (uncharged particles), protons (nuclei of hydrogen atoms), deuterons (nuclei of doubleweight hydrogen), tritons (nuclei of tripleweight hydrogen), alpha particles (nuclei of helium), and the theoretical but necessary neutrino (little neutron...
...discoverer already had intimations of its existence, and the positive electron was foreshadowed in the cogitations of at least one mathematician before its track turned up in the laboratory. In fact, some things are made use of even before they are discovered - e.g., the little uncharged particle called the neutrino which atomic physicists need in their calculations but which has never yet come to light experimentally. Quite different are unexpected and sometimes unwelcome discoveries* which do not fit into any preconceived picture and further complicate the problems with which scientists struggle. Such a thing is a new particle of matter...
MASS CHARGE Plus Minus No Charge Heavy Proton (Negative Neutron proton?) Light Positron Electron (Neutrino...
Actually, although all attempts to pin it down in the laboratory have failed, the little neutrino has already made itself useful. When particles are knocked out of a nucleus, there is a mysterious disappearance of both energy of motion and energy of "spin" (angular momentum). It is therefore assumed that the lost energies ride away on the elusive neutrino...
...knocks a neutron and a positron out of an electron, there is a mysterious disappearance of energy. He surmised that the excess energy rode away on a little particle which, now generally accepted as theoretically necessary, still eludes observation. It is because of Fermi that this little particle, the neutrino, has an Italian name...